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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 18 hours ago

You must have heard about visual illusions. But have you heard about auditory illusions? 

Auditory illusions: New research discovers how our ears play tricks on us
Humans often misperceive the location of brief sounds directly in front of them, typically hearing them as coming from behind. This auditory illusion persists across various environments and sound types, likely due to similar timing and intensity cues reaching both ears. The phenomenon highlights a limitation in spatial hearing, which may have implications for individuals with visual impairments.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03010066251395028

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 19 hours ago

Young donor age emerges as key factor in stem cell transplant success
Donor age significantly influences outcomes in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), with younger donors associated with improved event-free and overall survival, and reduced relapse risk, even surpassing older HLA-identical sibling donors. Gender and CMV status also affect results, and younger donor age remains beneficial in both fully and partially matched transplants.

Johannes Schetelig et al, Young unrelated donors confer a survival advantage for patients with myeloid malignancies compared to older siblings, Leukemia (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41375-025-02724-1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 19 hours ago

Images of drying blood samples are acquired using brightfield microscopy (transmitting white light through a specimen, which makes it appear dark against a bright background) and a common 4x objective lens, which magnifies samples four times. Images are acquired over time with a digital camera mounted on the microscope.

The same workflow can also be used to analyze other bodily fluids, including saliva and urine, expanding the diagnostic capacity of the workflow without the need for additional equipment.

The key takeaway is that every moment of the drying process holds valuable clues, not just the final pattern left behind. Each stage reveals how proteins, cells and other components move and reorganize within the droplet, capturing a dynamic 'story' of the sample's internal state.
By combining this time-evolving information with machine learning, the team can accurately identify subtle abnormalities in blood samples. This approach opens up a new way of thinking about medical diagnostics, one that is simple, fast and low-cost, yet remarkably informative.
The research establishes proof of concept for the team, demonstrating an effective workflow for detecting diseases such as diabetes, influenza, malaria and others, that has potential in the field. Ideally, the researchers hope to translate their methodology into a mobile and practical health-screening tool for use in developing countries.

 Anusuya Pal et al, From Droplet to Diagnosis: Spatio‐Temporal Pattern Recognition in Drying Biofluids, Advanced Intelligent Systems (2025). DOI: 10.1002/aisy.202500550

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 19 hours ago

Researchers diagnose disease with a drop of blood, a microscope and AI

Not long ago, the idea of diagnosing a disease with a droplet of blood was considered a pipe dream. Today, this technology could soon become a reality.

A group of scientists  has developed an automated, high-throughput system that relies on imaging droplets of biofluids (such as blood, saliva and urine) for disease diagnosis in an attempt to reduce the number of consumables and equipment needed for biomedical testing.

In the workflow, biofluid droplet images are analyzed by machine-learning algorithms to diagnose disease. Remarkably, the technology relies on the drying process of biofluid droplets to distinguish between normal and abnormal samples.

Current medical diagnostic tests typically require 5 milliliters to 10 milliliters of blood, necessitating a trip to the clinic or other phlebotomy service to draw blood with needles and tubes. Besides being painful, inconvenient and inefficient, blood draws are often a luxury of developed nations with modern health care infrastructure.

By eliminating the need for phlebotomy services and other consumables, diagnostic tests could be implemented worldwide to improve disease diagnosis and cost efficiency.

Traditionally, researchers have focused only on the final pattern left after drying. In this study, researchers looked beyond that, observing the entire drying process in real time. By tracking how the droplet's shape and internal structures evolve over time, they were able to uncover rich information about the fluid's composition.
By using machine learning, the team could "decode" the evolving patterns in drying blood droplets, allowing them to clearly distinguish between healthy blood and samples with abnormalities based solely on their drying behaviour.
Importantly, this technique doesn't require specialized equipment to make an accurate diagnosis.

Part1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

Underlying cause of Gulf War illness confirmed
Gulf War illness symptoms are linked to mitochondrial dysfunction rather than neuronal damage, as shown by elevated total creatine (tCr) levels in affected veterans' brains. This energy imbalance, rather than irreversible nerve injury, suggests that targeting mitochondrial function could offer effective treatments for the chronic symptoms experienced by Gulf War veterans.

 Sergey Cheshkov et al, Decadelong low basal ganglia NAA/tCr from elevated tCr supports ATP depletion from mitochondrial dysfunction and neuroinflammation in Gulf War illness, Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-24099-0

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

In a further step, the researchers investigated whether the ubiquitylation patterns found could be influenced by changes in diet. To this end, older mice were fed a moderate diet (calorie restriction) for four weeks before being returned to a normal diet. The surprising result was that the short-term change in diet significantly altered the ubiquitylation pattern in the mice—in some proteins, it even reverted to the previous, youthful state.

The  results show that even in old age, diet can still have an important influence on molecular processes in the brain.

However, diet does not affect all aging processes in the brain equally: some are slowed down, while others hardly change or even increase.

The study thus provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms of brain aging. It suggests that ubiquitylation is a sensitive biomarker of the aging processes—and potentially a starting point for slowing down age-related damage to nerve cells.

Antonio Marino et al, Aging and diet alter the protein ubiquitylation landscape in the mouse brain, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-60542-6

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

Aging alters the protein landscape in the brain—diet can counteract it, say researchers

As we age, the composition and function of proteins in the brain change, affecting how well our brain performs later in life—influencing memory, responsiveness, and the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.

An international research team has now discovered that a specific chemical modification, known as ubiquitylation, plays a crucial role in these processes. This modification determines which proteins remain active and which are targeted for degradation.

Proteins perform vital tasks in the brain—they control metabolism, signal transmission, and energy balance in cells. To function properly, they must be constantly broken down, renewed, or chemically modified. One of these modifications, the so-called ubiquitylation, serves as a kind of molecular tag: it marks proteins for degradation and regulates their activity.

The new analyses have shown that aging leads to fundamental changes in how the proteins in the brain are chemically labeled.

The ubiquitylation process acts like a molecular switch—it determines whether a protein remains active, changes its function, or is degraded. In the aging brains of mice, researchers observed that this finely tuned system becomes increasingly unbalanced: many labels accumulate and some are even lost, regardless of how much of a particular protein is present

As we age, the cell's internal "recycling system" also begins to falter. The proteasome—a molecular machine responsible for breaking down damaged or unneeded proteins—gradually loses efficiency. As a result, proteins tagged for disposal with ubiquitin start to build up in the brain, a clear sign that its cellular cleanup machinery is no longer working properly.

The researchers found that roughly one-third of the age-related changes in protein ubiquitylation in the brain can be directly linked to this decline in proteasome activity.

The  data shows that the reduced ability of cells to completely eliminate damaged proteins is a central mechanism of the aging brain.

The sensitive balance between protein synthesis and degradation shifts—a typical feature of cellular aging. In the long term, this can also impair the function of nerve cells in the brain.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

Depression tied to immune system imbalance, not just brain chemistry

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by a lowered mood and loss of interest, contributing not only to difficulties in academic and professional life but also as a major cause of suicide. However, there are currently no objective biological markers that can be used for diagnosis or treatment.

Amidst this, a research team has revealed that depression is not merely a problem of the mind or brain, but is deeply connected to abnormalities in the body's overall immune response.

They found that this immune abnormality affects brain function, and the "Immune Neural Axis" imbalance is the core mechanism of depression, opening up the possibility for the discovery of new biomarkers and the development of new drugs for depression treatment.

The research team simultaneously examined genetic changes in immune cells in the blood and changes in nervous-system-related proteins. The results confirmed a breakdown in the balance of immune-neural interaction in patients with depression.

 Insook Ahn et al, Exploration of Novel Biomarkers Through a Precision Medicine Approach Using Multi‐Omics and Brain Organoids in Patients With Atypical Depression and Psychotic Symptoms, Advanced Science (2025). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202508383

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

The Neuron study showed how these specialized neurons detect the beginnings and endings of words.

Given that fluent speakers utter several words per second, these neurons must rapidly reset to take note of the next word.

It's like a kind of reboot, where the brain has processed a word it recognizes, and then resets so it can start in on the next word.
The studies clarify why injury to certain regions of the brain can impair the ability to comprehend speech even when a person's hearing is intact.

Yizhen Zhang et al, Human cortical dynamics of auditory word form encoding, Neuron (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2025.10.011

Ilina Bhaya-Grossman et al, Shared and language-specific phonological processing in the human temporal lobe, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09748-8

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

Why a foreign language sounds like a blur to non-native ears

Why is it so easy to hear individual words in your native language, but in a foreign language they run together in one long stream of sound?

Researchers have begun to answer that question with two complementary studies that show how the brain learns the sound patterns of a language until it recognizes where one word ends and the next begins.

When we speak naturally, we don't put pauses or "spaces" between words, yet fluent speakers effortlessly perceive them. For years, researchers assumed it was the brain areas that give meaning to speech that were figuring out the boundaries between words.

The new studies focus on a different brain region, called the superior temporal gyrus, or STG. Until now, it was thought only to handle simple sound processing, like identifying consonants and vowels.

The new studies show the STG contains neurons that learn to track where words begin and end over years of experience hearing a language.

This shows that the STG isn't just hearing sounds, it's using experience to identify words as they're being spoken. This new work  gives us a neural blueprint for how the brain transforms continuous sound into meaningful units.

In the Nature study, researchers recorded brain activity from 34 volunteers who were being monitored for epilepsy. Most spoke either Spanish, Mandarin, or English as their native language. Eight were bilingual, but no one spoke all three languages.

Participants listened to sentences in English, Spanish, and Mandarin—languages that were both familiar and unfamiliar to them.

The researchers used machine learning models to analyze patterns and found that when participants heard their native tongue or a language they knew, the specialized neurons in the STG lit up. But when participants heard a language they didn't know, the neurons failed to light up.

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